‘’Analysis what!?’’

‘’Nothing...’’

So they waited. The sewage ran down the dark surface of the pillars, sounding loud and wide, and lightning imps glared at them. The one in his hands stopped moaning, its head dropped low like a tired old man, its body limp. Kowalski’s irregular breathing quickened as the imps opened their mouths and screeched. Ubel closed his eyes for a moment, prepared to cast his second ability any time now, and tried to sense the environment.

Then they struck.

The imps let out hollow shrieks one after another, leaping onto Ubel and Kowalski with discharges of lightning above and below their limbs. It took them a split second to arrive in front of the duo and tear at them. Although, they were as fast as ever, this time, both friends prepared beforehand.

Kowalski cast his divine ability and a snow-white ice mirror appeared in front, as big as a scutum shield, and blocked two of the lightning imps. He fell back two steps from the burden and at the same time a dark shadow towered him. Waves of death bringing violent water spewed out of space and drowned the other imps from sides for a moment.

As Ubel pushed them back, the other two sprang towards Kowalski again. Kowalski didn’t feel the fear and excitement before. He sensed some other emotions arise inside his heart. Something that forced him to act faster and strike stronger. While he did not know of it, on a global scale, everyone called that thing courage.

Dodging their attacks seemed impossible, so Kowalski created his ice mirror again. Imps also learned their lessons and eyed the young man. ‘’F*ck!’’ Kowalski heard Ubel curse but did not lose his focus on the monsters. The creatures in the question, although, did not keep their wits as Kowalski done.

With a shout, he charged towards the closest one and smashed his mirror onto its head. The imp acted quick in the face of danger and swallowed a mouthful of the liquid. It turned into a flash of lightning but, alas, couldn’t escape the strike. Other imp collided with Kowalski and sent him rolling on the ground with a huge crack at his shoulder and chest. The first struck imp, however, flew higher and fell into the sewage with screams and disappeared inside.

Seeing their companion die in a horrible way, drowning in filth, made the situation not so amusing for aggressors. Kowalski struggled to get on his feet again, but this wound turned out much worse than the early one. He sure broke a few ribs on the chest. He spewed blood from his tarnished mouth and tried to cast an ability again. Yet the imp came on him the same instant.

Its fearsome claws tore swift and pierced hard. Kowalski felt his flesh burning and his blood churn like a wave, in pain and anguish. He let out a wail and his eyes reddened. Then a huge bellow shook the sewers. Sewage rumbled and the road they stood upon broke, pillars supporting underground cracked.

‘’Embodiment!’’ Ubel cried and a dark, almost twice his size giant appeared. Featureless, no mouth and eye and nose, equipped with nothing but a small cloth at its waist and two spiked shoulder pads. Like a leaping fish and gliding dragon, it came upon the imp and held it between its robust fingers. With the other hand, the giant, out of thin air, created a stream of dark projectiles and slammed the imp onto them.

Imp screamed, pained, but more so furious, as blood trickled down from the swollen wounds on its now gaping chest. Then they exploded, leaving the body with a bloody head and scattered limbs. Kowalski gazed, his mind blank from all the gore and viciousness, then vomited right beside. The stench family of sewage now welcomed a new member, blood.

Then the giant held him from the waist and ran towards the entrance.

‘’Huh?’’

Another imp tried to stop it, but when its claws collided with the giant they just created sparks and a sharp sound. With a move, giant brushed off the imp and climbed upwards, then flung him towards a random point in the city.

‘’WHAAAAAT!?’’

Kowalski found it hard to calm down, but a hand then steadied him in the air. Turning back, his jaw dropped.

‘’City lord?’’

*********

‘’I hate Quan,’’ At this instance, Ubel reaffirmed his belief on the man he admired for a long time, and still did. A man who could detect the waves of the declaration from kilometers away definitely knew he was in dire trouble right now. Especially when, even with his premature third eye, he could sense the powerful fluctuations of their Qi cover the skies. Yet, Quan did not choose to help. Ubel also knew why, but still hated it.

This was just cruelty.

He looked around at the imps, baffled and ceasing their action, then gazed at the giant behind him; or more precisely, Embodiment. Its appearance gave him confusion, more so than joy and shivers. He couldn’t understand how imps faced it calm and wary with no fear. Because Ubel felt it.

The shadow of the giant resembled a god.

First things first, the Embodiment was, at least it had to be, his understanding of death, and its manifestation, which meant the giant in front of him was the image of death he carried. But Ubel knew more than anyone else that, he did not know the shape nor meaning of death. He didn’t even take the step forward to search for the answer, let alone reaching the ending point of the road.

He also needed to consider the fact that, Embodiment would be stronger if his understanding of death increased. So, for the sharp claws of Lightning imps to not even scratch its skin, who attacked with speeds faster than his eyes could keep up, its strength was evident. He did not know whether to feel happy or sad, or confused or enlightened.

Either way, he had to stop thinking for now as imps acted again.

Their pattern of attack seemed simple, yet the pace of their offense stood at a way much higher level, enough to render him helpless. Ubel released the waters of netherworld again and laid his back to the giant, who covered from behind. The thing had its own consciousness, it obeyed orders but did not take guidance. It just seemed too ridiculous.

He pushed back a pair of imps but two more dawned upon him. With a huge momentum behind their small bodies, imps tore away at his shoulders. Ubel swung a fist to strike one but it resulted in two claw marks on his left shoulder. They were light, not too deep to affect movement but fearsome enough to instill fear into his heart.

Taking a step back to hide in the shadow of his embodiment, Ubel focused his Qi. The revolution inside his body abruptly stopped and surges of Qi escaped from his pores. They weren’t pure, instead, they looked like poison. Or contaminated with death. Like evaporating water, the surges of qi spread into a black fog and blocked the vision of all.

Ubel released a sigh and held the arm of the embodiment, who turned its head to look at him. Its face showed...amusement? Ubel found it hard to stand calm, but he had to take care of the things here for now. Take me on your shoulder, we are going to escape.

It gave a slight nod, then put Ubel on its shoulders. Ubel decided that escaping now would be a better idea rather than staying and fighting until exhausting himself. Quan would intervene, no doubt, or the city lord himself. Either way, his life didn’t stand in danger for now. And he did not intend to put it in.

A burst of lightning, right after he landed on Embodiment, charged out of the fog and crashed to the ceiling. It pierced through as the upper street’s road collapsed onto them, leaving the place in ruins. Then the imps lunged again, crackling lightning covering their limbs once more.

Embodiment leaped as well, and the place it stood broke into dust and stone particles. The amount of fleshly power, or deathly power, it held gave a surprise to Ubel. If it is this strong at the moment, how powerful will it be if I can progress to the second step? Of course, he did not expect to get on the second and third steps of path finding, then entering into path establishing as he had done with Qi destruction. What he lacked now were experience and knowledge, and they didn’t come as free as Qi or spiritual treasures.

This could be why sect restricted the distribution of cultivation manuals. It did not, though, satisfy him enough to forgive the act of limiting the expansion of civilization.

Hearing a huge groan behind, Ubel awoke from his thoughts and looked back. The Embodiment leaped off and on the pillars that supported the sewers, slightly above the sewage, and avoided the thunderbolts called lightning imps. They crushed and crashed the and into the huge green columns, sometimes even breaking them from the foundation.

With another push, Embodiment avoided another debris of pillar falling on him and continued running. With their speed, they could tour around the sewer system quick enough, although Ubel estimated it compared to the city’s acreage.

Although the fondling of the wind on his face gave a pleasant sensation, the disgusting stink of the dark green water below and the ear-battering screeches of lightning imps disturbed the enjoyable moment. Ubel returned his attention to his inner revolution and started breathing in Qi.

Even Qi smells like a dump.

Withstanding the urge of vomiting, he left all the work of escaping to the Embodiment. He restored the used up Qi and filled up his reserves as much as he could, then turned back to face the imps.

But something unexpected happened.

Among the lightning imps, one of them suddenly went wild. Its limbs started to echo sounds of breaking and the liquid in its mouth evaporated. Like ash scattered in the wind, its body fell apart into dust and disappeared. ‘’What?’’ Ubel’s eyes stuck at the sight, then turned into one of horror.

He saw the origin of the disturbance. As another imp fell down and the leftovers started to realize what happened, one of them let out a shrill laugh. Its skin turned crimson red and enlarged. From the initial size of half of Ubel, it turned into a towering ten-meter giant. It pulsed off with a destructive energy Ubel had only seen once, and it horrified him.

The moment its metamorphosis ended, the red giant fell into the sewage, its head touching the ceiling, and roared. The blasts of air sent the pillars flying like arrows to the surroundings. The whole sewer system shook and the Embodiment almost fell down from the pressure. Ubel himself stood wide-eyed as the imps gathered on the shoulder of the red giant.

Red giant opened its maws wide open, two huge fangs stuck out of the bony, blood-red mouth, then swallowed the leftover imps. Before they disappeared into the darkness inside, they sent a shrill laugh and mocked Ubel with their eyes.

They showed disdain.

Gulping down its meal, Giant faced the Ubel, smirked, and shoved its hands front. Even after running away from it while it ate, they couldn’t escape the area of effect. Ubel felt frantic and horrified. Where the hell is senior master and others!? This thing is at their level!

Sewage rose like a tsunami and overwhelmed him and Embodiment. Swept down the stream, Ubel held tight on the body of Embodiment and opened his third eye to see. Then he realized, this thing had no aura. Only with the naked eye, one could see its power level, and if space was really sealed off, then Quan and others had no way of knowing the danger.

‘’Fly above!’’ Ubel cried to the embodiment as the last resort, then entered into the strange dimension again. This time, he did not care about whether he took someone with or not. He expended every bit of Qi he had left and gathered every drop of water he could get. Then returned back to the real world. The moment he came back, Embodiment pierced water curtain returned back to the surface, where they saw the giant right next to them.

‘’Abudal!’’ It grinned and sent another punch. The crackling of lightning and the whizzing of the wind accompanied the force. Feeling the impending death, Ubel wanted to cry from fear. But his body did not obey the feelings. Instead, he pushed both hands in front and released the huge body of water onto the strike.

Waters of netherworld came into being, with it hundreds of bodies, and collided with the strike. The tide turned into a mist in an instant, and the leftover momentum shoved them back. Lightning invaded Ubel’s meridians and seared the passageways, wind scraped his skin and brushed off the flesh underneath. With a shrill scream, Ubel saw the image of the night sky. Embodiment broke through the ceiling and appeared above the surface, then with another step leaped onto the sky.

Chilling wind froze his body and the moonlight bathed him, together with Embodiment, in a curtain of light. Ubel, then, witnessed two falling stars, seemingly coming to greet him, but he fell unconscious from exhaustion.